The demand for cellular radio service continues to grow at an astounding rate. Not surprisingly, it is becoming increasingly important that the radio spectrum be used to provide better cellular service for more and more customers with little or no extra cost to the service providers.
In cellular radio service, a predetermined radio frequency spectrum is allocated to carry the communication between a subscriber's cellular telephone and the service provider's base station, which is the gateway into the cellular switching network. The radio spectrum is divided into frequency channels, commonly referred to as “channel numbers,” which are reused by base stations within a service provider's area. The greater the reuse of frequency channels, the greater the number of cellular radio subscribers that can be simultaneously served.
A major cost associated with wireless telecommunications is the base stations. The cellular approach requires a large number of base stations in a city of any size. A typical large city can have hundreds of base stations. It is very expensive to provide and maintain the numerous radio receivers that may be found within the base station itself, not to mention the numerous channel links to the mobile switching center. Presently, all cellular technologies need as many radio receivers and links at the base station as there are frequency channels available in that area (or cell), since there may be a signal coming in on all of the frequencies at the same time. Therefore, there is a need in the art to reduce the costs associated with providing cellular service.